For breakfast I walked over to a café near my hotel and got a fresh juice with orange, kale, spinach, melon, and banana and a little bocadillo with ham and cheese. All of that only cost 3.75 euro too. At home the juice alone would easily have been $8. And it was absolutely delicious. The perfect little last Spanish breakfast. When I got back to the hotel I checked out and my car had arrived to take me the airport. I had a 2:00 flight and had the car get me at 11:00 just to be safe. I am so happy I pre-arranged all the transfers to the hotels and airports because it makes it less stressful getting a cab in a foreign country. When I got to the airport, which was enormous, and only took like 20 minutes to get too, I was so early that there was no one even at the counter so I plopped on the floor and just waited. I was at the airport almost as long as in the air on the actual flight. Figures. Security here seemed very lax as I only showed my passport when I checked in at the desk. Then to get into security, I just scanned my ticket at a security gate like they have at big business buildings with ID. My passport was not asked for again. I found that quite strange.
At the airport, I had plenty of time to sit down with my Prague guidebook and really look into to what I want and need to see while here. I already had a mini-list but I also read up on some of the places I was visiting. The flight itself was pretty easy because I slept for almost the entire thing. When I landed in Prague I got my suitcase and walked right to the exit and found the driver holding up the sign with my name and we headed to the hotel. I didn't have to go through customs or anything; I just walked out. Once again, I found this strange. Plus, I really wanted a Czech Republic stamp on my passport. Boo.
When I got the hotel around 5:45 I settled in and then of course grabbed my map from the front desk and headed out on my merry little way. I don't know if this city is confusing or it's the language that intimidates me because it has ZERO familiarity to me, but I felt overwhelmed again. Prague seems like a small city and hopefully I'll figure it out by the end of tomorrow. My hotel seems very centrally located and is right in the middle of a pedestrian plaza called Republic Square in Old Town. It seems very touristy but that's okay by me because that means more English is spoken which makes getting directions or help easier.
In the car on the way to the hotel I was paying close attention to my surroundings to see what seemed doable this evening and for my morning run. I decided to walk over to the famous Charles Bridge that crosses the Vltala River. I was also able to see where the Prague Castle is which I might do tomorrow. I walked along the river a bit and a lot of it is cobblestones which will suck to run on but once I get a little use to this city, hopefully I'll find a different route. After the bridge I walked back to the plaza, exchanged some money since they don't take the Euro here (it's like one euro to 27 Czech dollars; I won't be able to do that math over and over. Sigh.), and then set out to look for the Astrolomical Clock tower. It was right in the middle of the very crowded Old Town Square which was also home to the beautiful gothic Tyn Church. I was able to climb the tower and get yet another aerial view of the city and once again, it didn't disappoint. It was awesome! When I walked out, there was a huge crowd in front of the clock tower which was not there when I entered. I thought that was off but then looked at my watch and saw it was almost 8:00 which meant the clock would go off and do its little show. I obviously stayed to watch this and it was cool to see. I'm so glad I accidentally times that perfectly. I wandered a bit more, stopped for a smoothie for dinner and then stopped and got a Czech dessert of trdelnik. It was like a twisted spool of fried dough with cinnamon sugar. How could that be bad?!?! I could have also added chocolate too but didn't want to totally overindulge. It was pretty good though!
Traditional Czech food doesn't really seem like it's for me. I looked in my travel book of what it seems to include and nothing seemed appetizing except a fried cheese speciality. Now that I can get behind! This was one of the reasons I had such a lame dinner of a smoothie. I didn't want anything heavy or hot so that cancelled out a lot of places. I've seen quite a few Turkish places and lots of Asian and Italian restaurants too that I may give a go in the next three days. I have time to give the local flavor a chance and plan to try a real Czech meal at least once in my stay.
After dinner I walked around Old Town a bunch and saw some very cool buildings that I need to look up because they looked important. The sun was starting to set, which it does a lot earlier here, but seemed to last much longer. I walked back over to the river to watch it set over the castle and it was absolutely picturesque. The sky was lit up pink and was beautiful. I stayed out by the water for a while because I wanted to see the lights of the castle come on and then I started walking back to the hotel.
I plan to get up early-ish to run tomorrow but my days of vacation sunrise runs are over for this trip since the sun rises at like five here. Not happening. I have a tour of the Jewish Quarter tomorrow and then I think will head up to the castle. Although I'm sick of castles, cathedrals, and palaces, I've heard this one is a must so I'll "Czech it out." Boom!
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